High Court Tosses Out Spending Limit For Pacs

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court Monday struck down the $1,000 legal limit on spending by political action committees on behalf of presidential candidates in the general election.

In a 7-2 opinion written by Justice William H. Rehnquist, the court said that the spending limit violated the rights of free speech and association protected by the First Amendment.

To forbid the expenditure of more than $1,000 to present political views, Rehnquist said, ``is much like allowing a speaker in a public hall to express his views while denying him the use of an amplifying system.``

The decision ended years of uncertainty over the spending limit, which is part of the law that established public financing for presidential campaigns. In the last five years, two lower federal courts declared the limit unconstitutional, and it has never been enforced. The decision Monday upheld the latest ruling, that of a special three-judge Federal District Court in Philadelphia.

The lower court decisions proved a boon to the Republican Party in the 1980 and 1984 elections. Political action committees spent far more in support of Ronald Reagan in those races than on behalf of either Democratic nominee.

In 1980, committees spent $12.2 million on Reagan`s behalf, as against $45,000 for President Carter. Political action committee spending last year totaled $15.3 million for President Reagan and $621,000 for Walter F. Mondale.

Those disparities are particularly significant because, in other respects, the presidential nominees are on an equal financial footing under the system of public financing. In the 1984 general election, the nominees each received $40.4 million in public funds and $6.9 million more from their party`s national committee. They are allowed to receive no private contributions.

Contributions to a PAC can only come from an individual, who is limited to $1,000 in a year, or another PAC, which is limited to $5,000.

As have the lower courts, the court Monday treated the political action committee expenditures not as contributions but as ``independent expenditures,`` unsolicited by and uncoordinated with the candidates.

That distinction was critical for the court`s First Amendment analysis. In a 1976 landmark decision, Buckley vs. Valeo, the court reviewed many of the changes in federal election law enacted by Congress after the Watergate scandals. The court generally upheld limits on contributions, but struck down on free speech grounds the $1,000 limit placed on ``independent expenditures`` by individuals under the Federal Election Campaign Act.

The court examined a different statute Monday, the Presidential Election Campaign Fund Act, but applied the same analysis. ``There can be no doubt that the expenditures at issue in this case produce speech at the core of the First Amendment,`` Rehnquist said. The government can restrict such speech, he continued, only for the ``compelling`` reason of preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption.

Even if large expenditures by political action committees did pose a ``potential for corruption,`` Rehnquist continued, the $1,000 limit was a ``fatally overbroad response to that evil`` because it applied to small neighborhood associations as well as to groups with ``multimillion-dollar war chests.``

The two political action committees involved in the case were the two top spenders among 4,200 committees in the 1984 election. One, the National Conservative Political Action Committee, spent $5.5 million on Reagan`s behalf, and the other, the Fund for a Conservative Majority, spent $2.5 million.

The two were sued in May 1983 by the Democratic Party, which sought a declaration that the $1,000 limit was constitutional. The Federal Election Commission brought a similar suit the next month. While it agreed with the Democrats, the commission also argued that it had the exclusive power to enforce the campaign laws, and that party`s suit should be dismissed.

The three-judge federal court said the Democrats had the right to sue, and decided the two suits jointly. The court Monday said that the Democrats` suit should have been dismissed.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Byron R. White said the court ``has once again transformed a coherent regulatory scheme into a nonsensical, loophole- ridden patchwork.``

White said the court`s distinction between contributions and expenditures was ``not tenable`` because, in a practical sense, the two amounted to the same thing. Within the public financing context, he said, independent expenditures posed an even greater danger of corruption because, as the only private expenditures, they ``are thrown into much starker relief.``

``In overzealous protection of attenuated First Amendment values,`` White said, ``the court has once again managed to assure us the worst of both worlds.``